Subjective and objective indicators of socioeconomic status and self-rated health in Korean adolescents

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the associations among self-rated health and socioeconomic status. Methods: Analyses were conducted based on cross-sectional data obtained from the Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey. A total of 79,202 students aged 12 to 18 years participated in the study and there was a response rate of 95.5%. Separate logistic regression analyses were performed on each gender group based on a set of independent variables. Those being: the level of parental education level; family affluence scale; subjective household economic status; and subjective school achievement with SRH as the dependent variable. Results: Multivariate analyses revealed significant associations between each SES and adolescent SRH after controlling for other covariates. However, in the models that included all SES indicators, subjective household economic status and subjective school achievement remained significant in boys and girls. Conclusions: The findings demonstrated that subjective SES indicators are more closely related to adolescent SRH when compared with objective indicators.